An older woman, a younger boy - a relationship that society still feels awkward about. And she is white and middle-class, he Maori and a street kid. In this powerful, prize-winning novel of their love, Sue McCauley writes from the heart and from the gut, and from experience. She glosses over nothing, and takes her characters back to the bare bones, to where there can be no more hope . . . then lets their love triumph. Exploring ethnic, gender, age and class differences, this classic novel won both the Wattie Book of the Year Award and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. 'not only a good love story but also good ethnography' - Times Literary Supplement 'Resoundingly real: every situation clangs of truth' - New Zealand Times